In Cambridge special education, the parents observe the random priorities to uneven results

I am a parent of a fifth grader at the Kennedy Longfellow School in Cambridge. When we learned last November that the school at the end of this academic year.

And we were crazy. We said we wanted to make sure that K-Lo never happened again. We want to prevent a systemic imbalance and increase guidelines that prioritize and concentrate the needs of all Children in the district. Because we know exactly at K-Lo that it is only considered the priorities of a district as a “low priority”.

This experience has the article by Harvard Crimson on February 19 “Department of ED report that Massachusetts is not supported with special training”. This article states that children with special educational needs children, whose education is at least initially protected according to the law-were not well served in this state. In Cambridge, an effective special educator delivery was often buried under a morass of rotating and effect settings, cover-yor-ace communication practices, continued over investments in educational products compared to front-line people and panicked attempts to satisfy the vocal voices. However, random priorities lead to uneven results.

A typical management case: children whose medical or learning needs require a 1: 1 consultant to successfully access the curriculum.

In Cambridge there are 1-1 teachers (also referred to as 1: 1 special para -professional paraprofessions), and children who often benefit from this form of support. Although the Office of Special Education is an extension for a 1: 1 para, which is assigned by an individual education team, the practice itself is outdated in Cambridge. As a result, the assignment process is inconsistent, opaque and cloudy, differs significantly between schools within the district and seems to indicate an institutional case of mixed signals and commitment problems. Although there may be better ways, the coordinated will to discover, innovate and set more effective systems is lost in the department fragmentation of budgets and staff.

Here is a possible way how this could play in action:

Consider a child who tries to regulate his behavior in a general educational environment. Perhaps this student had a 1-1 adjutant before, maybe they didn't do it, but for some reason, things have deteriorated for the student and his classmates. While a behavior plan was developed for the student, the attention of the consulting specialist specialists of the district was spread so thinly by getting in and out in several schools in several cases that events have come beyond their consciousness. Now all recommendations are stale.

The classroom teacher does his best to give differentiated, trauma -filled lessons with consistently high expectations and results. At the same time, they are communicated by the District Middle Management that 1: 1 parasy are an ineffective support strategy that learns helplessness.

But escalate the needs and safety of the student.

In view of the Department of Jell-O, school-based administrators may be a problem solving by assigning a replacement building or a para-professional classroom as an ad hoc 1: 1 para-professional to support this student. This child is in need; Other children have to learn somehow. What other decisions do you have in front of you?

However, since the support of a 1: 1 para -professionals was not determined by an IEP team, the ad hoc 1: 1 para -professional ad hoc 1: 1 was brought into a very difficult position. You have not received supervision or guidance from the school district office for special education. You may have had training courses in crisis to support a student. You can feel comfortable in the assigned role or not. And they are no longer able to fulfill their actual duties as a replacement or paradeprofessional in the classroom. In the middle of the best intentions, this “solution” has now violated several students in several classrooms.

This worst case raises many questions.

How many students in the district have 1: 1 para -professionals as part of their IEPs? How many students have unofficial 1: 1 paras? How do the results compare to these students with those of classmates with similar learning and behavioral profiles? How many headmasters have made the difficult decision to assign a building to an unofficial 1: 1 tax? How do these decisions affect the student concerned? And The learning environment of your classmates? If you draw a building -U -boat or even a parade -proofessional in this role, how do you fill the order for which the person was originally set, the task that you originally commissioned? And finally, if individuals are assigned to jobs that they have not been looking for and may not be trained what effects have an impact on the morality and binding of employees?

So much vertebrae led to poorer (and expensive!) Results for everyone who was all completed in the additional time of the staff to get the administrative problem from adults who forgot that the responsibility before them was much clearer When the fears as the fears they brought the question. Their loyalty and priority should be the students, not to the department.

In this budget season I ask the school committee to return to the only core truth that is embedded in an individual educational plan: What are the child's individual needs before you? How can this child access free and reasonable public education in the least restrictive environment?

The right way forward is often much easier than we can do.

Anne Coburn, Otis Street, Cambridge

The writer is the parents of a fifth grader on the Kennedy Longfellow School in Cambridge.